What name should child's savings account be in? Dispute with council

McKneff

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

The council is arguing that he could/should commit a criminal offence and steal his grandchildren's money in order to pay his council tax?
Is that ethical?

He isn't stealing his grand childrens money, the money is in his name there for it is his money so no stealing is involved.
When it comes tot he time he give it away, then it will be their money and not until.


Personally, I get the impression from the OP that it is done deliberately to qualify for benefits.

maf66

Thank you to everyone for the replies. This gives us something to work with. CTF could be an option as both children already have these funds open. I just need to see how they fare in terms of interest rates.

To any doubters, I would like to stress that my father is the most un-savvy person you could meet when it comes to finances. I've had to sort him out on many occasions. The idea of withdrawing funds to get below a limit would not have entered his head. He probably didn't even know there was a limit until the council got in touch with him. Saying that, I can understand the council thinking he was pulling a fast one. We just need to convince them otherwise.

shop-to-drop

He needn't take money out of these accounts for the grandchildren anyway. He also has 16,000 in others savings he could use to pay his council tax. How many people who have to pay their council tax could say that they have this much in savings?

It really doesn't sound like he actually needs to claim this help TBH.

xylophone

It seems to me that the CTF (JISA) option would be best all round?

Your father should be able to demonstrate that this money was an absolute gift to the children and transferring the money to the CTF would put this beyond doubt.

I am assuming that the CTFs are in cash rather than stocks and shares - if you are not satisfied with the current rate you could look at transferring

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/child-trust-fund-vouchers

and from next April, CTF will be transferrable to JISA ( or possibly CTF will be reclassified as JISA).

After that, your father could make modest contributions to these accounts but he might still need to have regard to the question of deprivation of capital.

bowlhead99

shop-to-drop wrote: »

He also has 16,000 in others savings he could use to pay his council tax. How many people who have to pay their council tax could say that they have this much in savings?

It really doesn't sound like he actually needs to claim this help TBH.

There is always going to be a question about whether someone 'needs to claim this help anyway'. With £16k to last him the rest of his days, which might be 30 years, that is not much of a buffer. Someone else might have £15999 in a pension pot and £1 in their current account and sail through the means test, but it doesn't mean that person A or person B is better off overall.

Clearly if someone only had £1.6k to rub together, they are in much more need of help than someone with £16k. In turn, they are more in need of help than someone with £160k. You would not expect someone with £160,000 to ask for help. You would expect someone with £1600 to ask for help. And somewhere along the line, the help gets turned on or off.

Whatever your personal politics, you are not going to convince someone with £15800 that they shouldn't claim, any more than you are going to convince someone with £16200 that they should pay the council tax while their neighbour on the other side of the borderline gets it for free. Both of them need it more than the person with £160,000 and less than the person who has £1600. As long as someone isn't blatantly giving money to their family and friends just so they can 'duck under' the limit, it is fine with me.

Once you accept the concept of some sort of means testing being OK, which most of us broadly agree with to some extent, and you also accept that these things can never be perfect because they'll cost more to administer, but that you have to employ some people to review the edge cases for reasonableness so people don't take the mickey... then it's easy to stop begrudging people for claiming benefits, have a laugh at some people blatantly trying it on who are doomed to failure, and generally get back to enjoying your own lot in life.

The people who try to turn these sort of threads into a moralizing crusade [not necessarily putting you in that bucket] always makes a great alternative to Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer, but there's more to life than should or shouldn't Person X (whom we don't know intimately) be allowed to take benefits.

N1AK

Archi_Bald wrote: »

I don't think the people in the council should be applying "degrees" when establishing the balances in people's bank accounts.

I was responding to a comment on the ethics of giving money to family members not the laws involved. Clearly you can give money to family legally without being considered deprivation of assets. The point you're making doesn't relate to the discussion on ethics.

On the original subject, if the money is still in his name but has been in an account clearly meant to be for his grandchildren then I think this will need to be discussed with the council. If he just moves the money to accounts in their names so that his eligibility changes without agreeing with them it could negatively impact his eligibility anyway!

shop-to-drop

I was responding to the moralising other posts which were exclaiming that the council expected him to steal his grandchildren's savings to pay his CT. When clearly if he did that would be through choice not necessity since he also has £16,000 in other savings he could use to pay his bills if his income will not cover it.

MadMat

shop-to-drop wrote: »

I was responding to the moralising other posts which were exclaiming that the council expected him to steal his grandchildren's savings to pay his CT. When clearly if he did that would be through choice not necessity since he also has £16,000 in other savings he could use to pay his bills if his income will not cover it.

While trying not to moralise, is it really OK for him to gift money to his grandchildren, and then expect the taxpayer to cover part of his council tax bill?

Surely the correct way is he pays all his bills, and then if there is any left over he can gift as much of that as he wants to his grandkids?

Mat

bowlhead99

MadMat wrote: »

While trying not to moralise, is it really OK for him to gift money to his grandchildren, and then expect the taxpayer to cover part of his council tax bill?

Surely the correct way is he pays all his bills, and then if there is any left over he can gift as much of that as he wants to his grandkids?

Clearly if he has £16,000+, he has enough to pay a few hundred or even a couple of thousand pounds of council tax and other bills out of savings or income and still end up with some amount left over. Similarly if he has £8000 or £5000 he technically has enough to pay the council tax and have some amount left over. And the same at £100,000 of assets he has enough to pay the council tax and end up with some amount left over.

But it is accepted that at some low level of income, if you don't have a lot of assets and have to keep paying those council taxes you will completely run out of assets which we don't want. The line is going to get drawn somewhere.

So, at some level of 'amount before' or 'amount after' we say hang on, you don't have a large income, and you don't seem to be very wealthy, we will help you out. If his savings are under the threshold after normal expenditure (and yes that can include the odd gift), he will get helped out.

You could imagine this being abused by someone on a reasonably large income. Start with £15999 of assets, get £20k salary, or £50k salary, or £100k salary; spend it irresponsibly and give the last little bit away to get you back down to £15999 and get your council tax subsidy. Shocking behaviour.

However, it doesn't work like that. The support at low levels of financial assets is only where you are already on a low enough salary to be considered. Nobody is earning £100k salary and giving it all away to the kids to sneak under the assets thresholds. They have a relatively small takehome pay and are putting some of it into an account to buy the grandkids some sweets or books or a bike. They can't be buying the grandkids a new Ferrari because their income is not high enough for that.

So, although there is some scope to 'engineer' a better result for yourself, people are probably not engineering it thousands and thousands. You might think £16k is too high and at that level they should volunteer to pay all bills and just live with the result of having lower remaining assets before buying their grandkids a present, requiring them to cut back or cut out that spending on gifts. Maybe you think £3k is a better cutoff. Kinda painful if you had £3.1k and turn it into £2.5k after the CT bill and then need to get a new boiler for your house for £2499. So, we end up with much more of a buffer than that.

But it's impractical to legislate around the edges because if you say you can't put £10 into a bank account for your grandson to buy a book until you've paid your council tax, then should you be allowed to put £10 a week into buying yourself some cigarettes? The answer is maybe no but in practice, you can - and some would call it gaming the system.

The general concept that you have to pay for CT if you have a decent income, stops you spending indecent amounts of money on gifts to grandkids and buying cigarettes and booze etc. Only at low incomes, where you're not going to be able to spend billions on grandkids and cigs and booze, do you get to claim a relief. Obviously some people will buy stuff for their grandkids and buy some cigs and buy some booze but it should not be enough to drive the rest of us too crazy.